Papyrus Symbol

As in P46, P52, etc.  It is in the GraecaII font, symbol number 184 (in the Latin-1 section).

 

UK New Testament Lecturers

I’ve gone through and updated my list of the NT doctoral programmes (or programs, if you like) and the Lecturers at each here in the UK (plus tuition fees for each).  There’s been a little bit of turnover, but not too much that I found–theology departments don’t seem to be that quick for updating websites.  Please let me know if I’ve got somebody in the wrong place.  I may be biased, but I’d say that Durham and Cambridge have the best two line-ups.  Anybody want to venture their ranking?

After my chat with Richard Hays about Duke’s program, I’ve come to see the value in a critical mass of students and lecturers.  For instance, since they only accept 1 NT phd student per year at Duke, there’s not a huge amount of NT community.  (Don’t get me wrong the faculty there definitely makes up for it.)  But, the fact that I get to rub shoulders daily with 5 other NT students plus the other 10 or so that I see regularly at the weekly seminar, etc. is quite handy for bouncing ideas off one another, learning about areas I’m not personally researching, etc.  I’d still rank your supervisor as the top criteria for selecting a school, but size of the research community is definitely a strong plus for those that can find it.

 

Durham New Testament Seminars - Easter 2008

Here are the papers to be presented at the New Testament Seminar for the Easter term:

21 April: Stephen C. Barton, ‘The economy of the kingdom: theological reflections on money matters in early Christianity’

28 April: Postgraduate presentations:

i. Susan Mathew, ‘Reciprocity in the Pauline Mission: Reflections on the Role and Status of Phoebe in Rom 16:1-2′

ii. Kristian Bendoraitis, ‘My Father in Heaven’ and ‘Angels of God’: Matthew’s Only Omission of Angels (Matt 10:32-33; Luke 12:8-9)

5 May: No meeting due to Bank Holiday

12 May: Walter Moberly, ‘”Interpret the Bible like any other book?” Requiem for an Axiom’
(N.B. This meeting will start at 4.00 pm and will be a joint session with the members of the Old Testament Research Seminar)

16-17 May: Durham-Duke Symposium

 

Unbalanced Curricula?

Nijay and I were talking the other day about the different skills that people from evangelical schools bring to the table.  Evangelical schools focus on exegesis, but they don’t do as good a job with history of interpretation and pulling things together.  In other words, they do good with analysis but not with synthesis. 

I finally got around to reading J. Christiaan Beker’s The Triumph of God.  (I know I should have read it earlier.)  I asked around to the cadre of other NT students and none of us had to read the book (or his larger version Paul the Apostle) in our seminary or undergrad programs.  But there should be a point where students take a step back and look at bigger picture issues and read central books like this.  [By the way, this book is a great summary of the school of thought John Barclay follows.]

Now that I am doing some teaching in a much different setting, it’s hit me even more.  In the UK students receive about 1/3 of the amount of lecturing than in the US.  The emphasis here is on giving the big picture and having the student develop personal critical thinking.  This is at the undergrad level, but even at seminaries in the states the emphasis is upon downloading lots of facts.  For instance, at DTS we had to take some 18 hrs of Bible survey classes.  Only one of those classes was solely focused on methodology.  The rest were mostly a focus on commentary detail.  They could have been so much more helpful and influential had they focused more upon interpretive methodology for the different genres or synthetic studies like Beker’s.  And from talking to other people, DTS is not really any different than other evangelical schools. 

 

Durham NT Seminar - Epiphany Term 2008

Here’s the NT Research Seminar for the Epiphany term. I’ve got the pleasure of being invited to present this term. I think I’ve also been penciled into the Patristics Seminar as well at the end of this term, but the schedule hasn’t been published yet.

January 14: Professor John Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Cor. 8.1-15’
January 21: Professor Francis Watson, ‘By Faith (of Christ): An Exegetical Dilemma and its Scriptural Solution’
January 28: Dr Paul Middleton (Edinburgh): ‘Martyrdom is a Queer Thing: Gender-Bending in the Acts of the Martyrs’
February 4: Dr Ward Blanton (Glasgow): “Is There a Scandal in This Text? Exhibiting an Accursed Messiah in Galatians”
February 11: Postgraduate short papers: (i) Mr Ben Blackwell, ‘The Motif of Glory (doxa) in Romans’; (ii) Mr Brad Matthews, ‘Where on earth is the divine fulness? Christ, Church and plērōma’.
February 18: Dr Mark Bonnington: ‘Paul, Prophet to the Nations: Paul’s Self-Understanding in the Light of Jeremiah 1’
February 25: Dr Stephen C. Barton, ‘New Testament Eschatology and the Ecological Crisis’
March 3: Dr Justin Meggitt (Cambridge): ‘The world of the New Testament: why some things do not matter’
March 7: Durham-Sheffield NT Postgraduates’ Day Conference in Durham
March 10: No meeting

For your diaries:
  * Public Lecture by Professor Ben Witherington III, ‘Oral Texts and Rhetorical Contexts: Rethinking the “Letters”’, at St John’s College Leech Hall, on Friday 18 January at 2pm
  * Durham-Duke Symposium in Durham on ‘Identity’, 15-18 May
  * British New Testament Conference at St John’s College Durham, 4-6 September

 

First Seminars

I taught my first seminars this week–two seminar groups for NT Intro.  I taught 3 or so classes back in my MBA days, but I mostly lectured due to large class sizes (60+).  So doing teaching is not all new, but it was about 8 years ago when I led those.  (It is interesting that I didn’t even have a masters then and I was the sole grader and had final say on all grades, whereas here I can’t assess anything that counts towards the final grade.)

We discussed first-century worldviews based on quotes of about 10 miracle stories from Roman, Jewish, and Greek figures.  We then talked about the trouble of interpreting those stories.  Our key test case for modern interp was Bultmann.  I only had one student stand up for Bultmann and several were eager to rebut him as they affirmed the literal nature of miracles and the resurrection.  I brought up the fact that allegorical interpretation isn’t, at times, too far from Bultmann and that goes on all the time, so we have to be cautious how we nuance the argument.

I can say that these first year students impressed me.  I sat in on a first year (freshers) latin class for a week or two and my impression of English students was severely curtailed when they had trouble distinguishing parts of speech–like what is the word ’is’?  These students however seemed to grasp the key issues and had a few comments that I hadn’t thought of.

 

Review: British NT Conference 2007

I had the pleasure to attend the BNTC 2007 in Exeter at the end of last week. It was one of the most enjoyable conference experiences I’ve had. Although it was 6 hours oneway, I had a great train trip down and back with Kristian Bendoraitis and Kevin Bywater, fellow NT postgrads. And the conference itself was very enjoyable. Here are a few thoughts…

Attendants: There were around 140 attendees. A nice size that allowed one to mix with others as you wanted. I noticed a low Oxbridge participation (e.g., no J Lieu, PJ Williams, M Bockmuehl) and John (Barclay) noted that is a common occurrence, though Simon Gathercole was there. But I suppose 3 of the 5 Durham lecturers also didn’t attend–just John and F Watson. We also noted that it seemed that there was a really low number of postgrads in attendance. The far south location was probably a strong influence. It seemed that there were only about 10-15 there, and four of us were from Durham. From the sign-up list, it looks like maybe up to 30 were signed up (based on no ‘Dr’ designation), but unless they were all middle aged, we didn’t see near that many.

Papers
Plenary: (90 min) Unfortunately I only got to hear 2 of the 3 but they were very good. Morna Hooker kicked it off with a talk about Paul as Pastor. She noted that Paul’s repeated credal statements of Christ dying for us are also the basis of several of his ethical commands. (Credal Summaries: 1 Thes 4.14; 5.11; Gal 1.4; 2.19-20; 3.13; 4.4-5; 1 Cor 15.3ff.; 2 Cor 5.14-15; Rom 4.25 // Ethical application: 1 Cor 5.7; 8.6; 8.11; 2 Cor 5.21; 6.14-18; 8.9; Phil 2.6-11; 3.4-11, 17-21). ‘The self sacrificial love of Christ is our model of the true ethical behaviour to be applied especially in morally ambiguous areas.’ The second session was Larry Hurtado giving a summary of his book on ancient manuscripts as artefacts. I never realised how ‘innovative’ early christians were with the use of the codex (vs scrolls) for manuscripts, which hint towards the importance of reading aloud scriptures. Also, I didn’t realise how popular the Shepherd of Hermas was, a writing in the Apostolic Fathers corpus.
Short Papers: (45 min) Bruce Longenecker gave a helpful adjustment to Friesen’s Graeco-Roman Poverty Scale. But I was most impressed with Nijay’s paper on Phil 1.21-22. It was stimulating, and he did great on responding to questions. That’s right, our own Nijay Gupta. There were only 2 papers going on at the time, so he had about half the conference attendees in his session. John mentioned that it is rare to have a postgrad present in this session, much less a 1st year postgrad (where it is even uncommon for a seminar paper). So props to Nijay.
Seminars: (25-90 min) I enjoyed the Paul seminar. Since they distribute the Paul papers before hand, it allows for more depth in discussion b/c a smaller amount of time is spent summarising the paper before questions start. I’m glad John is my supervisor because he regularly asked the key (sometimes ‘bombshell’) questions that struck at the heart of the papers. I’m glad he’s asking me those questions in private so my public presentations are stronger from the beginning. I had a 90 minute slot in the Hermeneutics Seminar–session 2–all to myself. We had 6 of us in there. I felt really good about it. The questions weren’t too challenging, but key issues did arise to help me better focus the paper for when I try to publish.

Meeting People
One of the best parts of the BNTC that really sets it apart from other conferences that I’ve been to is the communal nature of it. Almost everyone stays onsite, and all meals are shared together as a group. I had two meals with Morna Hooker, my academic grandmother, which was great. I also had good discussions with Angus Paddison (Nottingham), Sean Winter (Manchester), Ward Blanton (Glasgow), Darrell Hannah (vicar in Oxford), and David Horrell (Exeter). In addition to talking those I also got to meet quite a few others such as Eddie Adams and postgrads from St Andrews. The cap stone of the event was the train ride home. Larry Hurtado was in the car next to ours, so after an hour or so we got the idea to invite him to come chat with us. He graciously accepted and we got to pick his brain and chat for about 45 minutes before he had to switch trains. Who could ask for a better ending.

Durham postgrads were definitely well represented with Kevin, Nijay, and me presenting. I’m glad that I took the opportunity to present a paper, and I’m already looking forward to when the conference comes to Durham next year.

 

UK NT Lecturers and Programs

I’ve got a page listing (almost) all the UK New Testament postgrad programs and their lecturers, along with tuition costs. I got a helpful note about corrections to the St. Andrew’s faculty, so I went through and updated a handful of links and lecturers at different universities. However, I didn’t have time to check all of them. If you see any places for corrections, please pass them along. Thanks.

 

Specialization

Josh brought up the issue of (over)specialisation. I was right there with him. I truly enjoy quite a few aspects of academia and hope that I can build compentencies in multiple areas. I suppose one issue is the lack of time to do everything well. I’m hopefully trying to add another plank in the NT-patristics bridge. However, I feel like I’m a jack of two trades, but a master of neither. At the same time I find it difficult to find any time at all to 2nd Temple Judaism, much less OT.

I suppose different projects demand different specialties, and right now I am forced to produce something that adds to scholarship, so it requires some level of mastery. Another friend Kevin, who shall soon arrive here in Durham, phrased it well: ‘Ph.D. students go from primarily being recipients of knowledge and instruction, to sources of it.’ The flip side of that is that in order to find a new area of research one must often work with more obscure areas or they must do something interdisciplinary. You can end up picking a topic with so little written about it that you are inventing the wheel. Or by doing something interdisciplinary you have to become the master of two fields. I suppose my goal is to be a more up on Pauline studies than patristics but to still try to do both well. We’ll see how it goes…

 

German Translations

I’m reading through the parts of Paul’s letters in German. It hit me that it would be helpful to memorise some portions of the German (Lord’s Prayer, etc.). If I am going to do that, I want to use a good version. I usually fall towards an NIV-style translation, so I started to look for some info about modern German translations to see which would be the equivalent. Based on the stuff I found below, I haven’t found what I think is an NIV-type translation. Since I’m not keen on doing a Textus Receptus version, it seems that I’ll be going with the Luther 1984 version. [Update: After going through these, I think the Luther update is still too wooden. The Elberfelder is quite readable and also based on modern critical texts. So, it's my translation of choice.]

I’d be happy if someone could give some more detail (or corrections) to my information about the versions below. (I’ve stared the ones in BW7.0)

*Lutherbibel (1984) - (~NKJV), updated version of Luther’s bible. I think this is one of the most broadly used translation, but someone said it still contains a few archaisms. I think Luther’s original version was based on the TR, but are the modern updates as well?

*Schlachter (2000) - NT based on Textus Receptus and OT on Massoretic Text (German description here)

*Elberfelder (1993) - (~NASB?), supposed to be a very literal translation. (John Nelson Darby was an original contributor in the late 19th century–those of you from DTS will know him.)

*Einheitsübersetzung (1980) - Catholic translation

Gute Nachricht Bibel - (~GNB), like the Good News Bible.

Neue Evangelistische Übertragung?

Resources:
Here’s some generic bible information.
List of German translations, with a nice color coding scheme